Hello beloved friends/colleagues/family physicians!

Aren’t you tired of your various geometrically-inclined puzzles going unseen in the dark recesses of your lair/mind? Do you yearn for the day that the postman will look past you to the glorious cube glowing on your mantelpiece and collapse in a fit of awe and untold fulfilment?

Well then, have I got a resplendent puzzle box for you!

No, it isn’t the Lament Configuration, sadly. But it’s the next best thing! What? No, it’s not the Millennium Puzzle either. You are the worst at guessing things.

The Rubik’s Cube Light

Ok, the cat’s out of the bag and the puzzle is on pale, pale fire. Welcome to the latest terminal on my whistle-stop tour of novelty lights and meet the latest innovation in retrograde gaming!

Out of the box, the first thing that becomes apparent is that the cube is a rather bulky 12 cm (x 12 cm x 12 cm* – come on, it’s a cube), although it is also quite light – no pun intended. The casing is made of a thick layer of plastic that can survive multiple drops onto a hard floor.

When lit up, the cube is very light in colour, with the white gaps in between the colours glowing brightly. The coloured sides are made up of stickers, which I hadn’t been expecting for some reason – I had just assumed that they’d be coloured plastic – and this means that they obscure some of the glow from within the cube, like backlit pieces of coloured paper. This doesn’t ruin the effect, however, in fact it may have been a bit uncomfortable if the thing let out more light, particularly given how long you have to stare at it to solve the darned thing. (Read: I have given up trying to solve it. And no I will not just look up the method online, you remorseless scoundrel!) Also, for those of us that like to take a more practical approach to these things, the stickers actually make life a lot easier.

Oh wow this looks unnervingly like a lobotomised moon.

The middle white square holds the power controls: a 5 v DC, 500 mA input for the USB charger that comes with the Rubik’s cube light, plus a switch that lets you toggle between the ‘off/charge’/‘on’/‘try me’ settings, a reset button (which I have not had to use) and a ‘try me’ button (which lights up the cube for a limited time when in ‘try me’ mode). The exact amount of time it takes to charge the light is a mystery to the whole of the internet, mostly because we aren’t patient enough to attempt solving the cube for longer than ten continuous minutes at a time. Once fully charged, the light claims to last around two hours, though I’ve had it lit for closer to three hours. The charging cable can be plugged into anything with a USB port – yes, that includes (probably) your phone charger – so it’s really very convenient, and I tend to just use my old phone plug for this purpose and just leave the cube plugged in.

There’s also a little triangular stand included with the light, so you can stand it up on a corner and proudly display it, and you’ll probably want to – it makes a quirky addition to any room, taunting any visitors into attempting to solve it and mercilessly driving them into an impotent rage. Did I hear someone say ‘novelty Christmas gift’?

The Rubik’s Cube Light retails at £29.99, but you can grab one at the discounted rate of £19.95 right now on Prezzybox.

I was sent this product in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

* Prezzybox actually lists the dimensions as 16 cm x 16 cm x 14 cm, which is at best confusing. I guess that refers to the whole package or potentially explains why I still haven’t managed to solve the blasted thing.